The following is an original production of AZPM News.

(Tom) This week on Arizona Illustrated, we're celebrating the gorgeous spring weather by getting outside and enjoying a hike up to Tumamoc Hill.

(Hiker) We get up here in like 20, 30 minutes.

We get to relax and enjoy the scenery.

It's really nice.

(Tom) We go bird watching in Sweetwater Wetlands.

(Erica) The migratory birds, they know where the good places are and they know here is a really good place to stop over.

(Tom) We'll teach you how to create a habitat for birds in your own backyard.

(Olya) Installing a nest box has many different benefits to the birds, but also the people.

(Tom) If you're in the planting mood, meet the Baja Fairy Duster.

(Alex) The name comes from the flowers, I believe, which sort of look like little dusters.

(Tom) And take a short drive to discover the history and culture of the Canoa Ranch.

(Raúl) And then the effort has been ongoing to restore the building, to have a glimpse of what a working ranch in Southern Arizona used to be like.

Hello and welcome to Arizona Illustrated.

I'm Tom McNamara.

It is spring and for the most part, it's been pretty gorgeous weather, except for a few days like today, a little cold and rainy, but otherwise very nice and time to get outside and enjoy the outdoors and a lot of places to do that.

So let's start you off with a piece about the sights, the sounds and the history of Tumamoc Hill.

(birds chirping) (Hiker) It's pretty amazing that Tucson has this.

Come out here on any given afternoon and you'll see hundreds of people walking and they're from all over the city.

I'm part of the river of people moving up and down this hill.

(Hiker) We come here five days a week.

Since we started, we maybe not go all the way to the top and now we can.

We just love it.

Just going and seeing the view at the end as a reward.

(Hiker) I lost 50 pounds since I've been doing this.

I've battled depression and anxiety for quite a long time, pretty much my whole life, so this is a good way for me to stay active and not be stuck in a gym.

(Hiker) My three favorite things about Tumamoc, the first thing is the beauty of the desert and the way that you climb the hill and you have all this beautiful view and perspective.

And so all of the things that you might be fussing about in your mind kind of fall away.

And the second thing I like is the people.

And the third thing I like is the wonderful exercise.

(Hiker) Running, some walking, some doing lunges, weighted vests.

It's just crazy seeing how everyone does it differently.

(Hiker) I love the heat and I love the desert, so here I am.

Gyms I tend to feel like as a chore and this I tend to enjoy.

(Hiker) We're actually doing a 30 day Tumamoc challenge and we're on day 12.

(Hiker) I love the torture myself man, it's fun.

Oh, I'm just addicted to working out man.

(Hiker) Halfway up I wanted to quit but I pushed myself.

Push, push, push.

Doctor's advice, gotta drop a couple pounds, high blood pressure, so I get rid of the old gut.

Yeah, get better shape.

Round's a shape but he told me that kind of a shape.

(Hiker) The moms, I don't know how they do it.

We see kids coming up here all the time or like mom pushing strollers and like we just tell ourselves that like if they can do it then we can do it.

(Hiker) We come to work out and exercise and work out our booty.

Sometimes when a guy walks past you, you got a pretty clear booty shot, so you know, take a nice little look.

It's not intentional but when it's there, it's there.

( LAUGHS ) (Hiker) You'll be walking as someone just like sprints past you and you're just like someday, someday I'll be there, hopefully.

(Hiker) Today, the use of Tumamoc Hill is the highest it's been in hundreds of years.

The trail here on Tumamoc dates over 4,000 years.

This site is the longest continuously inhabited site in North America and that really dates to the water flowing perennially year round in the Santa Cruz River.

For many of the same reasons we appreciate today, the views, the commanding features of it were utilized by the original inhabitants of this valley and there's actually two distinct periods of settlement when there are villages on the top of the hill, so collectively this is probably one of the richest archeological sites in North America.

(Hiker) We get up here in like 20, 30 minutes and we get to like just relax and enjoy the scenery.

It's really nice.

(Hiker) It's a little bit taller than A Mountain.

You could see the whole city, it's really pretty.

(Hiker) Drastically different than when I looked at here when I was graduating from U of A in 1972.

The town's about five times the size, that's what we're looking at.

It'll be from here to Green Valley and up to Casa Grande, a solid smear of humanity.

(Hiker) Absolutely beautiful.

There's a nice breeze.

We wanna make this a regular thing to come here often.

(Hiker) Really in the last five to 10 years, kind of seeing the high numbers of about 1,500 people a day or so use that we have currently.

This is not a park, this is a research station.

The University of Arizona with Pima County.

We're stewards of this land.

It's a great privilege to be able to walk here, but that comes with responsibility.

(Hiker) You hear English and Spanish regularly and sometimes other languages too.

So I feel like when I walk Tumamoc, I'm really walking amongst all of Tucson.

Ages, race and ethnicity, children, families, et cetera.

Buff people, not buff people.

(Hiker) There's a ton of people.

There's people coming down, people coming up.

I like that I can come up here at any time of night and I never feel unsafe walking up here by myself because there's always so many people.

(Hiker) I don't think you realize how big Tucson is until it's nighttime and you see lights throughout each side.

It looks so big.

(Hiker) It is one of the most beautiful representations of Tucson.

You know, Tumamoc is all of us.

It is this city.

It is this history.

It is the future.

(Tom) If the steep incline of Tumamoc Hills is a bit much for you, you can always enjoy the great outdoors at Sweetwater Wetlands, which is a public park right in the middle of town, yet feels a world away.

♪ GENTLE MUSIC (John) The Sweetwater Wetlands were actually constructed in 1997.

The Arizona Department of Environmental Quality wanted Tucson Water to come up with an environmentally friendly way to treat our process backwash water at the reclaimed plant.

My experience with the wetlands occurred when I began working for Tucson Water.

I was a hydrologist.

I loved the idea of it providing treatment for the utility for a water that could be reused and stored back in the aquifer, but at the same time creating this incredible nature preserve.

It's just a very cool place to be.

Once it was built in 1997, we have had it open through daylight hours for the public to enjoy.

(Erica) I like that it's just something quite different than any other place that you visit in town, especially.

(Shea) And any place you can find water.

That's what I love about this place is it still brings a bit of a respite from the desert heat.

(Tamer) Do you feel that breeze?

That's beautiful.

Just looking at that, that grass swaying in the wind is gorgeous.

(Jesse) I'd say we come here about two times a week, mostly in the morning to walk around.

It's so beautiful and the birds are just amazing.

It's like a little sanctuary in the middle of the city.

(Stephanie) Yeah, it feels like you're not in Tucson at all.

It feels like you're in a totally different place.

And the sound like you're like, even when you're walking in, you can hear the traffic.

And once you get in there, all you hear is the birds.

[ BIRDS CHIRPING ] (John) So the Sweetwater Wetland kind of mimics how the Santa Cruz originally looked as it was flowing through the city of Tucson over the millennia.

So a lot of the vegetation you see here is common to those riparian habitats.

All the species that you do see here at the Sweetwater Wetlands are native to this part of the desert.

(Erica) I've seen Bobcat here a couple times.

I've seen rattlesnakes.

And I think the best one was when she just was walking down the trail, you saw her coming.

So she was within five feet and she just walked right on by.

I don't even think she looked at me.

She just did not care.

(John) As soon as it was created and as soon as we added water to this feature.

back in 1997, life took off in the form of plants, but also in the form of migrating birds.

The birds that fly throughout North America and in regionally here started to find this location.

(Erica) When you have that migration periods, especially in the spring and the fall or after monsoons, then you're getting a lot of different species coming through here.

So the migratory birds, they know where the good places are and they know here is a really great place to stopover.

(John) This has quickly become a unique spot with the Audubon Society and it's not uncommon to see people here from around the world who are interested in birding because you can see hundreds of different species of birds in this very small 22 acre park.

(Tamer) I'm from Buffalo, New York.

I was looking for someplace to do some birding.

Found this place.

It's beautiful.

See some wildlife and hopefully some good shots and good video.

(John) The Wetlands was the base for inspiring these other riparian creations that Tucson Water has started in recent years.

By putting water back into the Santa Cruz, we're bringing these riparian habitats back to life throughout the region.

For many people, they don't know the Sweetwater Wetlands exist.

And this is in the heart of Tucson.

I think they'll be amazed at what the city has here.

(Tom) As you just saw, Southern Arizona is a great place for birding, so check out this next story to see how you can create a bird habitat in your own backyard with a nest box.

[ BIRDS CHIRPING ] (Olya) So our nest box is located right here in a mesquite tree.

Today we're in my backyard where we have a nest box for Lucy's Warblers.

and we have a camera that does a live feed of what's happening inside the nest box.

The nest box that we see today is a triangle design is what we call it.

We tested out different designs, but this is the one that they kept coming for.

We can help our local birds by creating a wildlife friendly yard.

The typical food, water but also safe places to nest.

So by installing a nest box you provide that vital part.

Around the Tucson Valley, we have saguaros and big mature trees that are the main providers of cavities and cavities are just holes that are created by the woodpeckers.

Those are the primary cavity nesters.

And you also have the secondary cavity nesters.

Those are the birds that nest in a hole in the cavity, but they can't excavate them themselves.

What we usually see in the Saguaro is just this opening and we have no idea how deep that actually gets.

But this is what is hidden from view is this really big cavity that is used by some of the larger species like kestrels and screech owls.

Many birds around here are suffering from habitat destruction, as our Tucson metropolitan area is increasing and urbanization is a phenomenon that's not going away.

There's just a lot of competition for this prime real estate for the birds.

So by putting up a nest box, you are decreasing the competition.

You're also providing a safe place to nest.

We try to make it really easy for our local residents here to find all the resources they may need if they're interested in installing a nest box.

We have them for sale at our nature shop on University Boulevard.

We also provide plans if you wanted to build one yourself.

[ DRILLING SOUND ] Whether you're in the valley in Tucson or on top of Mount Lemmon, pretty much any place or on top of Mount Lemmon, pretty much any place has a cavity nester nearby that could use a nest box.

For example, if you have mesquite trees around, then a Lucy's Warbler nest box would be the right choice.

If you're more in like the desert area then a Screech Owl Box would be a good choice for you.

[ OWL COOING ] If you're in the grasslands, Kestrel box is a really good one to put up there.

Many people come to Arizona from other states, they might not think of birdhouses as a suitable thing for Arizona heat.

But Tucson Audubon has done a lot of different studies, testing ways to responsibly install a nest box.

For example, we recommend that the nest box is installed in the shade of a tree or just shielded from the afternoon sun.

The western sun.

Something that we recently started doing is putting up web cameras inside the nest boxes.

and that really allowed us a glimpse into the secretive part of our cavity nesters' lives.

Every spring, we make sure to stream the live cameras on our website and anyone interested in seeing this footage is able to go and see it.

Installing a nest box has many different benefits to the birds, but also the people.

Birding has a strong recreational to being able to relax and watch the birds.

And who doesn't like baby birds, right?

So it's so much fun to host a family in your own backyard.

(Tom) If you plan on doing some landscaping this spring, you might consider planting a desert shrub whose flowers are as fun as its name, the Baja Fairy Duster.

My name is Alex Arnold, and I'm a horticulturist here at the Desert Museum.

This is a baja fairy duster.

It's Latin name is Calliandra californica.

Great plant for attracting pollinators to your yard.

It has a really long and prolific flowering season, so it's a great addition to anybody looking to create a pollinator garden in their yard.

This isn't native to the Tucson Valley, but it is native to the Sonoran Desert.

It occurs in Baja, California and in Sonora.

Where it occurs in nature is usually slopes of hills or sort of the sides of streams.

So it does like a well draining soil, but it can pretty much thrive in all of our native soil around here, even the less well draining soils.

It's a cousin to a native species of fairy dust that we have here, right here in the Tucson mountains.

The reason that we especially like it for horticulture is because it has a more prolific blooming season than our native one tends to have.

It also is more robust and larger.

Part of the reason that it's blooming season is longer than ours is because being from Baja California, it's somewhat of a winter grower, like so many things from Baja.

So it's flowering season tends to extend deeper into the winter than our native calendar, which usually by now will be done flowering.

Baja fairy duster is a really tough plant.

It's from a very sunny hot environment, so it can handle basically full sun.

It doesn't have any thorns, which makes it really great for having in a home landscape.

It can be a single accent plant or sometimes is used even as hedgerows.

You can have it planted right along a pathway and you'll have a constant supply of butterflies, bees, pollinators.

But you won't have to worry about catching your pants on thorns or cutting yourself.

Another fairy duster we have here on grounds is a true Tucson mountain native, the desert fairy duster, also known as Calliandra eriophylla As you can see, it doesn't grow as big and tall as the Baja fairy duster, it has a much shorter form.

And the flowers are much lighter in color, kind of varying from almost white to a lighter pink shade.

This is blooming profusely still, however, in nature you might walk right by one of these and not even notice it.

For much of the year it will look like not much more than a pile of sticks.

However, with the rains pretty much from spring on, but especially during the monsoon, you'll see it go into these profuse blooms and then all of a sudden driving along the side of the road, they'll start popping out to you.

Both are great for any garden.

If I have a landscape where I'm trying to recreate what you see in the hills around town.

I would go with this one.

If you're looking for more color, more profuse blooms, the Baja one could be good for, you know, that kind of situation.

(Off screen voice) And where does the name come from?

Fairy duster?

(Alex) The name comes from the flowers, I believe, which sort of look like little, little dusters.

Actually, you know what?

I've never really thought about it.

I assume it comes from the flowers, but it's like a feather duster.

I don't really know why a fairy?

I have no idea.

I think the name comes from the little poof, like flowers, which are kind of fairy like, and definitely look like a feather duster.

[ LAUGHTER ] That's my interpretation.

(Tom) If you want to get away this spring you don't have to go far.

Canoa Ranch is only 40 miles south of Tucson.

In fact the late congressman Raúl Grijalva spent the first few years of his life there and the property gives you a nice glimpse into southern Arizona's historic roots.

♪ PERCUSSIVE MUSIC (Robert) The ranch itself is full of interesting buildings, lots and lots of interesting history.

This was the entrepreneurial center of Southern Arizona.

The Santa Cruz Valley is what actually made Southern Arizona.

It was the area where they were doing all kinds of ranching and mining and timber and all of those things that go along with it.

And it's why people moved to Southern Arizona.

The folks that developed this, Levi Manning was the mayor of Tucson for a while.

He developed the Tucson Water Company.

They did many things to actually help benefit Tucson.

There were stage stops down here.

The Tarbox Hotel was down here.

This part of the world, it's why we're here.

One of the most interesting things about the site is that all of the buildings are actually made out of adobe.

This is natural adobe.

It's uncured adobe.

There's no cement mixed.

It's not baked.

It's just mud and water and cactus juice.

It's really all it is.

[ MUD SQUELCHING ] Adobe is a very interesting building material.

Actually, there are more homes built out of dirt in the world than anything else.

And adobe is one of those dirt that we use to build homes.

The interesting thing about it is that it has a very short maintenance cycle.

So every 12 to 18 months, there's some part of this property that we're actually redoing the adobe on.

♪ TRUMPET (Tony) My dad originally came here in the 1940s during the war.

Then later on in 1952, he brought the family over from Mexico.

He worked on the ranch himself for 25 years.

I was on the ranch during my childhood up to 1965.

♪ TRUMPET MUSIC (Raúl) That's where I got started in life.

Wherever you start in life, you always remember very fondly.

You always remember it with rose-colored glasses.

It was a beautiful experience.

We lived where the families lived and the single men lived in the bunkhouse.

A lot of activity.

It was communal.

Everybody knew each other.

We're still good friends with the Castillo family.

Still good friend with Joaquin Murrieta whose dad worked there as well.

And other families that were there.

(Robert) This is an important part of their history in the Santa Cruz Valley.

They made major contributions to the success of this ranch.

Without them, obviously, a lot of what took place here would not have happened.

We'd like to celebrate the Hispanic and Mexican families that actually lived and worked here and made this ranch what it is.

[ CHAINSAW REVVING ] (Tony) I used to help my dad work on these latake corralls back in the 50s and 60s.

I helped.

He did all the work.

It gave me a sense of what labor is all about and responsibility is.

I think this one is just going to have to... And so I decided to come back and call it a labor of love.

-Interesting times.

Now these walls are all adobe.

They're 18 inches thick.

Does everybody know what adobe is?

(Jon) We saw it online.

Canoa Ranch.

Historic ranch.

And didn't know anything about it.

So we signed up, came down, and it's an excellent tour.

Really, very informative tour.

(Jackie) We were really surprised how big it was.

And the cattle, the 80,000.

And kind of some of the kitchen area.

And I'm a kitchen person, so I look at that, "Oh, they're going to make dinner for how many people here?"

♪ GUITAR MUSIC (Raúl) It's a historic ranch.

Iconic.

It used to be huge.

It was down to about 5,000 acres that when I was on the county we were able to save.

I bought it from the developer.

He was going to put homes on there.

And then the effort has been ongoing to restore the buildings.

And to have a glimpse of what a working ranch in Southern Arizona used to be like.

(Simon) It's a voyage of discovery.

We're always finding something new.

And fortunately we have some great staff here with Pima County.

-So if you have questions, just shout them out.

(Robert) If you're interested in the history of the Santa Cruz Valley and of Southern Arizona, this is a great place to come see what actually happened.

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Like, follow and subscribe to Arizona Illustrated on Facebook, Instagram and X. Thank you for joining us here on Arizona Illustrated.

I'm Tom McNamara.

We'll see you next week.